From my journal, Saturday, April 25, 2015
How rare, odd even, to sit quietly on my front patio and just, sit. In this moment it feels good to feel insignificantly significant, wanted but undemanded.
Perhaps the heaviest burden to bear is being unable to ever release one’s burdens. People needing this thing or that answer or this direction or that decision. It can be like the weight of Apollo bearing both the unbearable and banal at the same time. And, in the face of fatigue, it gets challenging to know the difference.
This becomes a source of longing. Our forearms ache from too much mousing. The face twitches from receiving-line forced smiles. The knees quake and quiver from running just a little too far. And the heart yearns for something barely recognizable, hidden in distant memory, largely inaccessible – rest.
Perhaps at the root of our longing is simply poor discernment of the needs of our own soul. We can harbor a frog-in-the-kettle faith that simply cooks rather than jumps out as the heat gets turned up. Could it be our distaste for those, forever crooning about self-care, whose lives already display an enviable lack of stress?
Why is it that those best at soul care are those who appear to have the least actual need for it? Is this a descriptive or prescriptive thing? Were God to “turn up the heat” a little on these comfortable lives, would their soul-talk descend as quickly into stress-talk as it does for everyone else? Or, is their slower, more inner regimen somehow the recipe for the slower, inner life they seem to enjoy? Is it commitment to self-care or neglect of reality that I observe? Should I praise or pity?
Either way, soul care is something we all need. I need. Sometimes the voices we hear insistently deny our need for what we can barely hear. And, the git ‘r done pragmatism of our culture only adds to the guilt of taking needed moments to breathe. So today, I willingly ignore those voices yelling “soul care? No, you’re just sorry for yourself,” and watch my roses blow in the afternoon wind.
Now I can hear, and must therefore say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”
Robert, I really like this line: “And, the git ‘r done pragmatism of our culture only adds to the guilt of taking needed moments to breathe.” I am struck by the language we sometimes use as Christians, sayings like, “Well, all we could do is pray” and “Well, there’s prayer and then there’s action.” This reflects the kind of worldly pragmatism of which you speak. Prayer is action. It is the action of connecting with the Creator. It is action of the highest responsibility. It is action that defines all other actions. Thanks for the reminder that soul care (prayer) is not self-pity. God bless you today!
I can really appreciate what you mean by the “work of prayer”, Lanny. It resonates deep within my soul. Appreciate the reminder….
Brother Rob:
In August of 2009, my supervisor told me I had Compassion Fatigue. I had no idea what he was on about, at first.
Like a traumatized soldier returning from a tour of duty in Iraq, I felt hyper-vigilant, angry, moody, and struggled to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. Sadness covered me like a wet blanket. “And [my] heart yearn”[ed] for something barely recognizable, hidden in distant memory, largely inaccessible – [Sabbath] rest.” I wrestled with the heaviness of my choice to leave my therapist’s chair for that entire, long, frustrating 19 month period.
I have to agree with you, my friend; soul care is something we all need. No question. I find it, at times spent walking in nature. But mostly, I find it in time spent in Contemplative prayer. As Lanny helps us to remember, it can be seen as serious work of the Lord. One of my favourite authors down-under, Dr. Neil Pembroke, exhorts:
“Contemplative practices such as regular meditation, lectio divina, and sitting in silence can be more active than one thinks. Often modern Western people understand meditation as a passive, blissful act, repleat with constant consolations of wholeness and well being. Any serious practitioner of meditation will know that, after a time, quiet consolation gives way to confrontation with the false self. Thomas Keating, a proponent of the meditative practice of Centering Prayer, describes this as ‘all hell breaking lose within the psyche’ (Keating 1995).”
All hell broke loose in my world back then. And only in prayer did I find any solace… and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it… (Matt. 16:18)